


in a twist

by merelydovely



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sex Shop, Lingerie, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 16:17:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13662657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merelydovely/pseuds/merelydovely
Summary: Enjolras times his visit to Le Mystère with the utmost precision. Grantaire’s shift shouldn't be starting for another eight hours – plenty of time to browse.





	in a twist

**Author's Note:**

> As always, much love to my beta [myrmidryad!](http://archiveofourown.org/users/myrmidryad/pseuds/myrmidryad)

Enjolras times his visit to Le Mystère with the utmost precision. It’s the best-stocked sex shop – sorry, “erotic boutique” – in a forty-mile radius, so there’s no way he’s going anywhere else, but he has absolutely no desire to run into Grantaire while browsing. In the end, he’d had to sink to interrogating Joly about Grantaire’s work schedule.

(Joly had obliged him, but only with a great deal of insufferably knowing smirks. Next time, Enjolras is going to take his chances with Bossuet.)

The upshot of it all is that Enjolras is here in Le Mystère, shopping for men’s lingerie, at ten A.M. on a Tuesday. Grantaire’s shift won’t be starting for another eight hours – plenty of time to browse.

Enjolras casts a critical eye over the store’s meager offerings. Like most men of the lingerie-wearing persuasion, he usually does his shopping online, where there’s a decent if not overwhelming amount of choice, but his last few purchases have all turned out to be either the wrong size or the wrong color or the wrong fabric  _or_ all three upon arrival, and he’s getting impatient. 

Le Mystère’s lingerie is arrayed in a separate area from the rest of the store’s merchandise, in the back corner next to the store’s lone fitting room. Despite the scanty selection, Enjolras takes his sweet time collecting the pieces he wants to try on. There are a few in sealed packages that look intriguing, but while he can rub his fingers over the material to test the feel, he won’t be able to try them on, which is unacceptable.

He piles the packages back where he found them and takes his other selections into the fitting room.

First is a pair of lacy shorts in a misty steel blue color. There’s a sign imploring customers to only try on underthings over their own underwear, which Enjolras had anticipated: he’s wearing his most comfortable black thong, which should leave plenty of exposed skin to get a sense of how the lace feels against him, how the garment pulls.

He slips on the shorts. They look nice on – the blue matches his eyes – but they ride up in the back in a way that would grow intolerable after any length of time. 

Next is a similar pair in a different cut, this time in white. The fit is great and the lace feels amazing on his skin, but he technically already has a pair in white at home, even if it is greying a bit. He takes the shorts off and hangs them on the second hook instead of the first – a possible purchase.

His first rousing success is the third pair of underwear he tries, which is mostly black with small gold flowers embroidered on the crotch. The sides and back are ever so slightly sheer, while the square of fabric in the front is see-through mesh studded with the aforementioned flowers. He can feel them rubbing against his cock even through the added layer of his own underwear. It’s perfect. The black-and-gold goes on the hook with the white lace.

The fourth pair he tries is an understated shade of pink, with microfiber between his legs and lace everywhere else. He’d rather it were the other way around, but the design comes with garter belts attached, which almost makes up for it.

There’s a reason he came to Le Mystère. Three out of four items are potential purchases? He doesn’t even get that lucky shopping for  _groceries_.

Enjolras gathers his maybes into a haphazard pile in his arms and shoulders open the door to the fitting room. He’s still grinning like a demented tabby cat as he barrels toward the shop assistant, who dances out of the way at the last second, as light-footed as a boxer. 

The shop assistant, who… is Grantaire.

“Enjolras?” sputters Grantaire. He’s holding several hangers’ worth of the same women’s item: probably rotating out new merchandise, Enjolras thinks mechanically.

His mouth stubbornly refuses to form words of its own as Grantaire fumbles his way into an attitude approaching professionalism. “Um, um. Hi? What are you –– I mean. Uh. Can I help you? Are you finding everything okay?” His eyes had been fixed on Enjolras’ horrified face, but now his gaze falls to take in the tangle of lingerie in Enjolras’ arms. “Did you want to keep looking, because, um, I can hold those at the front for you if, uh, uhhhh, if you want?”

“You’re not supposed to be here,” is what Enjolras ends up saying. God, what is wrong with him? Yes, he’d wanted to avoid running into Grantaire if at all possible, but it’s hardly the end of the world.

(It’s totally the end of the world.) 

“Not supposed –– oh. My shift was –– Michel just called out sick, said he had a migraine, so I came in early. He just left.” Grantaire gestures over his shoulder with the hand that isn’t holding half a dozen violet corsets.

They stare at each other for a long moment.

“I’m ready to buy,” Enjolras blurts out. He’s got to get out of here.

Grantaire nods mutely. Then he turns and waltzes back toward the front of the store, ducking and weaving so that his bundle of corsets doesn’t catch on any of the protruding displays.

They don’t speak as Grantaire hauls Enjolras’ mess of clothing across the counter. Nor do they make eye contact. Grantaire’s eyes are intent on his work, and Enjolras’ eyes are intent on Grantaire’s broad hands, unhooking the unforgiving tips of metal hangers from delicate waistbands and peeling apart wispy silk from rough lace with unhurried ease.

“All of these?” asks Grantaire, his voice low and, unless Enjolras is mistaken, a little rough. 

(He  _must_  be mistaken.)

“J-just the black and gold for now,” says Enjolras. He can come back for the others if he wants to, some other time that isn’t completely and utterly mortifying.

The pink, white, and blue are set aside; the black is wrapped gently in tissue paper.

“You know, there’s––” says Grantaire, and then he stops.

Enjolras has to look up. “What?” he asks. “There’s what?”

“Um,” says Grantaire, still not looking at him, “there’s a new set we just got in––men’s stuff, you know––and, uhh, judging by––” he gestures to the items on the counter “––what you picked out, I think it’ll be to your tastes.”

“Okay,” says Enjolras warily. Is this some kind of joke? An upsell?

Grantaire disappears into the stockroom, and after an interminably long moment he’s back, proffering one of those sealed plastic packages Enjolras had skipped over in his initial search.

“But it’s sealed,” Enjolras objects. “I can’t try that on.”

“You can if I say you can,” says Grantaire. He spreads his hands wide, grinning. “You don’t even have to follow the underwear-under-underwear rule if I say you don’t. As long as I’m the only one on shift, this store is my domain, and I am its god.”

Enjolras squints, skeptical. “That can’t be sanitary.”

Grantaire’s lips quirk up on one side. “We have a thingy in the back.”

“A  _thingy_.”

“Clothes thingy.”

“A steam cleaner? An iron?”

Grantaire bites at the nail on his thumb, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he hefts the package in his free hand. There’s something a little wild behind his eyes. “Some kind of mini portable washer thing, I dunno what it’s called. Don’t worry about it.”

Enjolras is worrying about it, Enjolras is most definitely worrying about it, right up until Grantaire turns the package around and Enjolras sees what the model on the label is wearing.

As Grantaire had mentioned, it’s a set, a head-to-toe outfit in black and brilliant scarlet: lace-and-satin panties, lace-and-mesh garter belt, and lace-trimmed thigh-highs, topped off with one of those strappy, trendy-looking underbust bras, its shallowly scalloped cups held together by yet more lace. The only thing lacking is a pair of shoes.

Enjolras forgets his embarrassment, forgets his skepticism, and most especially forgets that the only way to wash that much lace is by hand. He snatches the package away from Grantaire and stalks back to the fitting room, unbuttoning his shirt one-handed as he goes.

As soon as the door has closed behind him, Enjolras is kicking off his shoes, shucking off his shirt, and slithering out of his jeans. There’s a very undignified few moments where he nearly falls over trying to take off his socks, and then he’s free, stripped to his underwear.

The black and scarlet set comes from the same manufacturer as the black and gold he’d planned to buy, and the cut of these new panties looks similar to the other pair, with stretch satin at the hips and lace everywhere else. 

They’re perfect. Enjolras wants to feel them,  _needs_  to feel them.

Impulsively, he shoves down his obligatory-for-sanitary-purposes underwear. Grantaire had said it was okay, right? …Or had he just said that it would be okay in the hypothetical event that he chose to give such permission?

 _Fuck it,_ thinks Enjolras. He pulls the panties on, tucking his rapidly stiffening cock into the pouch at the front and immediately sighing with pleasure at the feel of the lace on his head, his shaft. 

The lace shifts and rubs against him as he sits and maneuvers one leg at a time into the thigh-highs, which are gloriously filmy and soft. The garter belt is next, settling against his hipbones like a possessive pair of broad hands. When the belt is clipped to the thigh-highs, its front is pulled down against his crotch, pressing the lace there tighter against his skin, and he has to hold still for a moment, breathing slowly, adjusting to the wave of sensation until it’s no longer overwhelming.

Last is the bra. Enjolras isn’t normally one for bras, but something about the juxtaposition of the extra straps and the lace underbust make it look almost like some other garment, something alien, without so many unwanted connotations of appropriated femininity.

And however little he may care for the aesthetics of men wearing bras, he’s always loved the slight, sweet scrape of soft lace over his nipples.

He turns, finally, to get a view of himself in the mirror, and he’s… he looks…

Well. The deep wine-scarlet can’t be said to match his eyes, and he doesn’t know enough about color theory to offer a truly cogent analysis, but he looks, to quote Courfeyrac,  _fine as hell_.

He doesn’t want to take any of it off.

The package doesn’t have a price tag anywhere Enjolras can see. Is this one of those “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it” situations? Surely not.

He still doesn’t want to take any of it off. So he doesn’t. He shimmies back into his pants and buttons his shirt gingerly over his lace-bedecked chest. When he sits to work his socks and shoes on over the ends of the tights, the denim of his jeans provides yet another source of friction against his cock in its cage of red lace, and he has to swallow a small moan. 

Finished, he sits up, and realizes there’s one item of clothing left over: his thong. He could stuff it into an awkward ball in his back pocket, or… hmm.

Screwing his courage to the sticking place, Enjolras saunters out of the fitting room as casually as he can, empty package under his arm. Hooked on the end of one long finger is his thong, which he twirls with forced nonchalance as he walks. 

Grantaire is staring openly, and Enjolras glowers at him, daring him to speak.

He should have known, really, that there’s one dare Grantaire will never refuse.

“Wow, Chief. Quite the spring in your step. So you liked it, I gather?” Grantaire says in his signature mordant tone. “Quelle surprise! Would you look at that. Mark the calendar. I was  _right_  about something.” He makes a show of dusting off his hands: a job well done.

Enjolras approaches the counter once more and sighs, letting his eyes fall closed. He’s just found the world’s most perfect lingerie; he’s not going to let Grantaire’s usual antics ruin that for him.

“I do like it. Thank you for the suggestion,” he says politely. “How much do I owe you? The package didn’t say.”

“Oh, it’s not even in the system yet, I have no idea how much it costs,” says Grantaire. “That’s why there’s no tag. I’ll just buy one on your behalf once the box it shipped in gets properly inventoried.”

Enjolras blinks at him, confused. That doesn’t seem right. But then again, he’s never worked retail, so what would he know?

“I’ll take care of it, trust me,” says Grantaire. He breezes on: “You don’t even need to worry about paying me back. Let’s say… let’s say it’s an apology gift, for ruining your shopping trip with my unexpected presence.”

With only the brief distance of the counter between them, Enjolras can make out the air of studied indifference in Grantaire’s words, and he narrows his eyes, suspicious. 

Grantaire catches his look, waving it away with a careless hand. “It’s no big deal, I have an employee discount.”

Incredulous, Enjolras shakes his head. “Grantaire, even with a conservative estimate, this outfit is easily over a hundred euros’ worth of lingerie.”

“It’s a  _very good_ employee discount?”

Enjolras rolls his eyes. A million objections rise to his lips, but Grantaire is immune to logic when he gets it into his head to do something. Enjolras knows from long experience that there’s nothing Enjolras can say that Grantaire can’t effortlessly deflect with a joke or a shrug. 

And… when all is said and done, if Enjolras lets Grantaire do this, Enjolras would own lingerie that Grantaire had picked out and bought for him.

Enjolras squirms, hunching his shoulders, and the clothes under his clothes whisper against his bare skin.

Grantaire’s eyes catch on the movement, darting down Enjolras’ body and up again, a fast but thorough once-over. His gaze settles somewhere around Enjolras’ collarbone as he breathes shallowly through his mouth.

“…Wait.  _Wait_ ,” says Enjolras, his voice skewing suddenly high-pitched. “Are you… are you wondering what it looks like on me?”

Grantaire sucks in a breath, and for a split second his eyes look wide and panicked. But whatever expression was on his face in that moment is gone the next, subsumed wholly by his ever-present easy smirk. Enjolras tells himself he was just imagining things.

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not, but, Chief,” says Grantaire, chiding him, “aren’t you always going on and on about how this is supposed to be the land of liberty, not a motherfucking police state?”

“…Yes?” ventures Enjolras, nonplussed.

Grantaire busies himself with something behind the register. “Then why are you trying to police my thoughts?” 

Enjolras splutters, indignant. “I’m not trying to  _police_ , I was… I didn’t say it was a  _bad_  thing!” 

A beat too late, he bites his lip. 

Grantaire loses his grip on whatever he was fussing with, which turns out to have been an 250-ML bottle of lube. It skitters across the counter and falls at Enjolras’ feet.

“ ‘Not a bad thing,’ huh?” says Grantaire slowly. “You’re really serious about this exhibitionist streak, aren’t you? I have to say, Enjolras, private as you are, I did  _not_  see that coming.” The way his lips pull back around Enjolras’ name is leisurely, a little mocking. “Though I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised. You always did love an audience.”

“It’s not an  _exhibitionist_  streak!” squeaks Enjolras. What is wrong with his voice?

“No?” says Grantaire, one eyebrow arching upwards. “Then what’s with the––” he twirls his finger meaningfully, and Enjolras clenches his dangling thong into his fist, feeling like the world’s biggest idiot, “––showing off? And wanting me to picture you all dressed up?” Grantaire rolls his shoulders, then leans forward, crossing his arms and resting his elbows on the counter. “I’m not trying to embarrass you, you know. Unless, of course,” he winks, “that’s what you’re into.”

Enjolras gulps. Grantaire is flirting with him. It’s not the first time, not by a long shot, but that’s just one of the many ways Grantaire is quintessentially French: he flirts with everybody, from little old grandmothers crossing the street to riot cops holding the line at demonstrations. And Enjolras is French too, he knows how to play the game, and yet, somehow, when it comes to Grantaire,Enjolras might as well be German.

Well. If he’s going to be German, he should do it properly – that is to say, directly. Enjolras takes a deep breath in through his nose.  _Let this interminable charade finally end._

“It’s not just any audience I want,” he says. “It’s you.”

Grantaire freezes, his eyes wide, his knuckles white where they’re gripping his biceps.

The silence stretches out between them. For lack of anything better to do, Enjolras ducks down to pick up the forgotten bottle of lube, placing it carefully on the very edge of the counter. He finds himself reading the ingredients list to pass the time, his nerves drawn ever tighter as the seconds tick by. 

“Uh,” hazards Grantaire, at length. “I feel like this is maybe a trap?”

Pride in tatters, patience pushed past the breaking point, Enjolras snaps. “How the fuck could this be a trap, Grantaire?  _You’re_  the one who baited me into a confession!” He pushes his curls off his forehead. “God, what am I even still doing here?”

“Holy shit,” breathes Grantaire, straightening up. “Holy shit, you’re serious.”

“Fuck you,” spits Enjolras. Only one of them here has a problem with chronic insincerity, and it sure as hell isn’t Enjolras. He spins on his heel, barely feeling the way the strap of the garter belt cuts into his hip as he turns.

“Enjolras,” says Grantaire. “Enjolras, fuck, I’m sorry, wait!”

Enjolras stops. He can’t quite bring himself to turn back around.

“I don’t understand,” says Grantaire. “You… want me?”

Enjolras makes an aggrieved noise. Does he really have to say it twice?

“Don’t answer that, I’m thinking out loud,” says Grantaire hurriedly. “I’m just, you know. Surprised. Confused. Struggling to process.”

But not, Enjolras notes,  _flattered_. His heart sinks another few feet in his chest.

“I have a crush on you,” he says dully. “It’s not rocket science.”

“Enjolras,” says Grantaire again. There’s a tenderness in his voice now, something impossibly soft, half-familiar. “Enjolras, please look at me.”

Enjolras looks.

Grantaire’s hands have both been wedged in his front pockets. The expression on his face is unusually earnest. Enjolras is struck by how much it reminds him of the day, years ago now, when Grantaire showed up to a meeting, shaking like a leaf and death-pale, declaring his intention to finally get sober. Whatever Grantaire’s about to say, he means it. 

Then Grantaire says, “Enjolras, I’m so into you it’s pathetic,” and Enjolras’ breath catches in his throat. What? How is that possible? Surely he would’ve noticed – surely someone would have told him?

But Grantaire’s not done: “Sometimes I think my heart’s going to burst right out of my chest with how much I want to be with you. And other times I think you’re so far above me I can’t even imagine polishing your boots. One minute I’m acting out to get your attention like a five-year-old child, the next I’m actually contemplating getting my shit together on the off chance you’ll consider me a prospect. You make me crazy.” He shakes his head; his black curls bounce. “So I’m sorry I didn’t believe you right away, but, you gotta understand…” and his eyes are huge and dark, blinking up at Enjolras, “…this is kind of a lot to take in.”

Enjolras swallows. Now, more than ever, he can relate. “Uh, understood,” he stammers. 

Grantaire laughs, nervously. Enjolras has never heard the man laugh  _nervously_  before.

“So, I guess we should go out for a drink sometime, huh?” says Grantaire. “If you like me and I like you? Of course, in my case it’ll have to be orangina or some shit, but I still know where they serve all the best wine.”

Out for a drink – the classic first date. And yet, not exactly well suited to Grantaire’s sobriety. “Thanks, but I think I’ll pass,” replies Enjolras, smiling a little at the thought of Grantaire evangelizing about the virtues of this or that vintage while nursing a bottle of orange soda.

It’s alarming, how abruptly Grantaire’s face falls, how immediately his expression shutters. Enjolras gropes desperately for his next words: “A walk!” he blurts out,  overloud. “Let me take you out on a walk, instead.” 

His father had told him once that going out on a walk together was a true gentleman’s idea of a date.  _Errer est humain, flâner est parisien_ : to err is human; to stroll, Parisian. A ramble along the Seine with Grantaire, watching him talk technique with every street artist and mimic every tourist, the two of them sharing knowing looks… well, that would be divine.

A smile blooms on Grantaire’s face again, small but real.

“I’d like that,” he says, voice uncharacteristically soft.

Enjolras approaches the counter again, reaching a hand across to Grantaire, who takes his own hands out of his pockets to clasp Enjolras’ hand in both of his.

“The real question, though,” continues Grantaire, exploring Enjolras’ palm with the pad of his thumb, “is this: when we take that walk, will you be wearing your latest acquisition?”

His thumb comes to a stop on the inside of Enjolras’ wrist, and Enjolras becomes acutely aware of his own quickening pulse. For the first time in this whole bewildering morning, he can feel his cheeks flare with heat.

The salacious setting had faded from the forefront of his mind as they’d shared their confessions, but now he’s confronted once more with the reality of what, exactly, had brought them on in the first place. The lace against his skin makes itself felt. In his mind, the outlines of what he’s wearing are clearly visible through the fabric of his outerwear – he feels naked, exposed.

It’s not all together a bad feeling. Not with Grantaire’s sizable hands enveloping his own, not with Grantaire gazing steadily at him with that wicked smile.

Now, thinks Enjolras, would be a good time to be French.

“You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?” he says, surprising even himself with just how low his voice dips. He seizes Grantaire’s wrist and squeezes gently, drawing Grantaire’s hand towards his face to drop a breeze of a kiss there, first one, then another, turning his hold so that he can brush his lips against the more sensitive skin of the inner arm. Grantaire’s breath catches audibly. 

Then Enjolras pulls back, keeping his movements smooth and controlled. “Thanks for the lingerie,” he says, as offhand as he can make it. He takes a step toward the door, not quite ready to turn around. He wants to remember the gobsmacked look on Grantaire’s face for the rest of his life.

“My pleasure,” manages Grantaire after a beat, his voice husky.

He gives Enjolras a little wave as Enjolras backs out of the shop, and Enjolras waves back over his shoulder, a warm light flaring to life in his chest as he walks down the street toward the nearest Métro station. The glide of the thigh-highs on his legs as he walks is the icing on the cake.

Most successful shopping trip  _ever._

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this prompt over at les-amis-de-nsfw:
>
>> _There needs to be more fic in this world where Grantaire works in a sex shop and Enjolras comes in as a customer. Not sure what would be better - E not knowing R works there and getting flustered, or E being fully aware that R works there and going there to get him worked up!_
> 
>   
>  Little from a column A, little from column B...
> 
> My beta told me it wasn't clear, so I'll clarify: if Enjolras hadn't bought the lingerie set after trying it on, Grantaire was 100% planning to take it home and jerk off with it. Hence the evasive answers!
> 
> [Here](https://xdress.com/collections/mens-bras-and-garter-belts/products/the-new-lace-bra) is the official inspiration for Enjolras' bra and panty set on xdress, and also [here](https://imgur.com/a/r46o1) on imgur in the event xdress discontinues the item. (I was also inspired by their garter-belt-and-thigh-highs sets, but not by any specific design.) If some enterprising person were to draw Enjolras in the dressing room, they would own my SOUL.
> 
> My soul is also up for grabs to all you lovely people who leave kudos and take the trouble to comment. Bless you!


End file.
